Community Spotlight Covid19 Response Moira champs

What made you want to step up once the lockdown happened and offer your support?

The news. I was unable to sleep with the news of all the people walking miles for basic security of livelihoods and food. At the first slightest hint by Nandita that she wanted to team-up with like-minded people made my conviction stronger and before I knew it, I was a part of not one but 2 teams soon.

How did the Moria Camps Group get formed?

I am unsure of that. There was a larger group that had people scrambling for information about all kinds of things, rules, medicines, pet food, groceries etc. I was sure that I wasn’t volunteering for most of these issues. So, I decided to collate data of the migrant population in Moira. I called for information of location of such settlements on the larger Moira Group, and Ragini suggested I take up this agenda and lead it. When I took this on, I had little idea about multiple volunteer groups, or that Moira Champs was different from GHH, MSG or Covid Outreach etc. This understanding dawned me much later.

Can you explain a bit about how you guys mobilized to offer support during the lockdown? What systems did you use to work more efficiently?

A visit to the location to verify location and status first hand.

Data collection: Initially this was done by us, soon we started asking the communities to fill out forms for us. Usually one person from each location would emerge as the one point contact who would fill out details for that location.

Verification: a few phone numbers would be randomly be selected and calls would be made to verify.

Sourcing: This was sometimes done from Mapusa using funds from Moira Champs kitty, sometimes with GHH’s help from Delfinos and sometimes from MSG stocks in Salvador-du-Mundo.

Coordination with volunteers for distribution round

Distribution: With each distribution we would make some improvement over the previous round. A de-centralised distribution with 2 volunteers at each location worked really well.

Information sharing: After a few rounds of distribution we discovered the government helpline, and started making handouts with information, so we could empower people to ask for rations from the government. This worked well sometimes, and sometimes we had to fill the gaps. The uncertainty of whether it was going to be addressed by the authorities with no clear information worked against this system.

What have the Moira Champs been doing to support individuals throughout this lockdown period?

Providing Rations,

Sharing verified information around government helplines and schemes,

Looking out for livelihoods,

Verifying Information on trains for travel and many times handholding people through the process,

Sometimes arranging for transport from Moira to station,

Sometimes personally dropping people to public transport which was erratic in the initial days with no way to reach Mapusa from Moira.

Coordinating with authorities to fill the information gap for our people who would leave the village with uncertainty around being allowed on the trains or not.

How many individuals have come together to do this important work in Moira?

8 to 10 people

What are some of the difficulties you guys faced while trying to do this work?

Uncertainity : This is one word that I can see throughout the thread. Starting from uncertainity in the minds of the vulnerable about food security, Uncertainity around government’s stand on ground realities and the rights the citizens could exercise.

While the village locals were sometimes appreciate and sometimes indifferent towards our work, there were a few who went all out to call out names and posing hurdles in our way. This was the most unfortunate revelation. We were often questioned about the need to help people who were viewed as burden.

Sometimes physical fatigue of being on-ground in summer though he hottest time of the day and most of the times mental fatigue from ground-work, the phone constantly ringing, working late nights to be able to spend some little time with family in the day. We had to stay alert for 300 odd people at all times. This would start at 6 in the morning till 10 in the night, and in a few rare instances at even 1 or 2 in the night, although not on all days!

Once the mechanism kicked in from the government’s end to provide rations there were always uncertainty with regards to details like if one person from the community should call or if each family should call the helpline individually. Lack of information about how many of the calls were registered in the government logs, how many people will get help, and when the help could be expected. There was no information available on what quantities an individual was entitled to.

Once the Shramik expresses started to run, there was a lot of uncertainty around train schedules, if a confirmation SMS was an absolute must, what happens if one member of the family got messages and others did not. In cases when people did not get a confirmation about registeration, leave alone train information, we would register individuals on the portal. There was a lot of back-and –forth on the decision from the government on this.

There were cases of people who had broken phone screens who could not read or forward msgs. The messages were initially in English that most people had trouble reading. The advance notice in many cases was too short. We never got to know if it was the government’s responsibility to arrange for travel from Moira to railway stations. In the first few days this was essential because the regular bus service had not started.

What has been the most rewarding part of this experience?

The calls from the people who reached home, calling back to thank. While I may not get to meet most migrants, the new bonds formed with co-volunteers is a reward that stays with me and I will cherish forever. I feel I have found my tribe!

How did the support needed change over time?

Operations:

There was a need felt for a helpline for Moira which did not exist from the beginning

There was need to streamline the incoming calls

While in the first few rounds we did not re-pack rations to handout easily, we soon learnt the value of doing that beforehand.

Again in the first few rounds we would be 2 volunteers doing the entire round together. Later we realized that dropping off rations at each location with a couple of volunteers to distribute reduced our time on-ground and we were able to finish this without getting heat strokes!

The data was earlier on sheets of paper, but when more volunteers joined in this had to be moved to googlesheets, for it to be more accessible. I personally found it extremely difficult to handle tech and distribution in parallel, so I would return home and update the sheets later. I think had there been an app to feed data it might have been easier, but low connectivity would have again defeated the purpose. In any case, this is only a guess. I didn’t mind the extra paperwork.

Support

Rations to Information about government support to filling gaps to livelihoods to travel to railway stations to train information.

What is a common misconception you hear a lot about the communities you are serving that you wish you could correct?

That they don’t have the right to demand basic or a misperception that they should be thankful for the little they got.

How many migrants or individuals were you able to help over the course of the lockdown?

As Moira Champs: 340

As MSG (Migrant Support Group) for which I handled fundraising, reporting to donors and sometimes on-ground support :

People reached in Phase 1 (Rations): 6347. Rations given to last for 5 days

People reached in Phase 2 (Food for travel) : 21,180 travellers.

People reached in Phase 2 (ORS distribution) : 6400 travellers.

We understand that you have been working tirelessly to help people get home. Can you tell us a bit more about this, and how many people you were able to help get home?

I haven’t done this math. But I think around 150-180 people from Moira is a good guess.

How do you thing this has changed Moira’s community?

Hard to say. If we talk about community at large, I hope it has changed to some extent. There might have been an acknowledgement of the existence of such a large population of vulnerables. Some people like the landlords might be relieved after people have travelled back to their home villages. Some people might feel a vacuum from the absence now and find it difficult to do the jobs that the migrants handled.

For me personally, my place of privilege has started to bite me which was the feeling I started out with. I am trying to decide if I wish to make my peace with it, or continue to find things that I feel passionately about like this one. The latter is definitely not a road I had travelled in the past so intimately and is not an easy one. Only time will tell.